


Four Ways They Could Have Met and One Way They Did

by Luthien



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Regency, Episode Tag, F/M, First Meetings, Sex Pollen, Temporary Amnesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-03-23 14:41:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3772081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthien/pseuds/Luthien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five ways Belle and Rumpelstiltskin meet.</p><p>1. High School<br/>2. Coffee Shop<br/>3. Regency Ballroom<br/>4. The Enchanted Forest (Sex Pollen)<br/>5. Storybrooke</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. High School

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Nym, Undun and Telanu for audiencing.

They meet by accident on the first day of school. 

Belle gets out of her car and pauses to pat the bonnet affectionately before she opens the back door and gets her bag. Belle loves her car. It’s her favourite colour, a deep sky blue, and the perfect size for zipping around the city and squeezing into tiny parking spots. She never wanted to learn to drive when she was younger, especially not after she moved to inner Sydney to go to university. Now, after less than a year of driving, she can’t imagine how she ever coped without her own set of wheels for so long. 

She’s just locking up when another car, a dark, old-fashioned gas guzzler, pulls up beside her. A man gets out with some difficulty. Belle’s half considering offering him an arm to lean on until he reaches around into the back seat and pulls out a black, silver-handled walking stick. He hauls himself to his feet. 

He’s not all that tall, or all that young. His greying hair hangs down on either side of a sharp featured face, longer than is usual for most men his age. There’s something imposing about him, though. Maybe it’s the way he holds himself, straight-backed and confident, despite the walking stick. Maybe it’s the cut of his nicely-tailored suit, dark to match the stick, or the deep lavender silk tie, both sights rarely seen in any school in Belle’s experience. Or maybe it’s just the look in his eyes. It’s not a friendly look. 

“You shouldn’t be parking your car here.” He speaks in low, measured tones but there’s just enough of a hint of menace in his voice to make anyone take notice. It’s the voice of someone used to being obeyed. 

“Why?” Belle asks. 

“Because this is the staff car park.” He points the end of his stick at the sign by the gate. 

“And you think I’m some new Year 12 student who doesn’t know where to park the car she just learned how to drive?” She shouldn’t goad him, Belle knows. She should set him straight. But there’s still something about that look in his eye. He’s so very sure that he has the upper hand. 

“Well, aren’t you?” he says, and looks down pointedly at the front of her car. It has a “P” plate beside the number plate, to show that she still holds a provisional licence, like the teenager he so clearly thinks she is. 

“Are you a teacher?” she asks, trying to sound like a seventeen-year-old. It’s not hard to do. She’s spent a lot of the past eight years around seventeen-year-olds. 

“What do you think?” he asks in reply, but he’s looking at her more sharply now. Maybe she overplayed the slight sulky note in her voice. She's sure of it when he takes a couple of halting steps closer so that he can look at her properly without her car getting in the way. 

“I think you’ve realised that I’m not a student,” Belle says, and steps out from behind the car onto the grassy verge. Without the car obscuring her features, it must be obvious that she’s a woman and not a girl. Her four inch heels are also very far from the sort of footwear that’s approved for students at any school. They’re hardly practical, and Belle doesn’t intend to wear them to work again after today, but a little extra height never hurts when making a first impression, particularly when you’re so short and slight that you’ve been mistaken for a student from behind on more than one occasion. 

Being mistaken for a student face to face – more or less – is something new. 

She walks over to introduce herself and is just starting to hold out her hand when her right heel snags in the muddy ground. She stumbles, feels her ankle twist beneath her, and grabs wildly for the side of his car in the unlikely hope of not ending up lying in the mud. Her hand doesn't find the car. Instead, his hand finds hers. 

“I’ve got you,” he says, his other hand gripping her waist tightly as they fall hard against the side of his car and his walking stick clatters onto the ground. 

“Ow!” Belle exclaims and looks up into brown eyes that appear at least as shocked as she feels. Her breath catches, and she’s suddenly terribly conscious of his body, warm against her. His arms are still around her. 

He seems to realise it at the same moment that she does. His arms fall away from her and he steps back even as Belle pulls away and tries to pull herself together. 

“I’m terribly sorry!” she blurts out, feeling like the silly girl she was pretending to be a moment ago. “Thank you,” she adds belatedly, and looks down at her bag, pretending to search for something in its depths. 

“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it,” he says quickly, his voice rougher than before. He doesn’t sound like he’s sure he has the upper hand any more. “I’m just glad I was able to stop you from falling.” 

_But you didn’t_ , Belle thinks. _I’ve fallen, and fallen hard_. An arrogant manner and a pair of pretty eyes aren’t much to base an attraction on, but there’s no denying that it’s there. Belle glances at him again and finds him staring at her. His eyes look less dark than when she first saw him, as if they’ve somehow let a bit more light in. It makes him look totally different, even though he’s still just standing there, leaning against his car – because he can’t walk properly by himself, she realises. 

“Let me get your walking stick for you!” Belle exclaims, relieved to have an excuse to look away. 

She finds the walking stick without much difficulty, the end of it poking out from under her car. She smiles as she retrieves it, turning around to show him. The smile dies on her lips and she takes a deep breath. It's like there's a weight in her chest, getting in the way of her ability to breathe. Just looking at someone has never had a physical impact on her before. She’s going to have to get used to it, to him, and fast. 

She lets her gaze stray to his hands as he wordlessly takes the walking stick from her and his right hand closes about the handle. He’s wearing a ring with a large blue stone on the third finger of that hand. It's some sort of dress ring, not a wedding band. He doesn’t wear anything on his left. 

Not married, then. Probably. 

The ring and the long hair suggest a streak of something a little outside the mainstream, so he probably doesn’t teach science or maths. Maybe he’s an art teacher? But she can’t imagine an art teacher ever wearing a suit, much less a tie. Oh, God. He’s not the principal or something, is he? 

Belle closes her eyes. Her boss. Of course he’s going to turn out to be her boss. And she _so_ wanted to make a good first impression. 

He’s still there when she opens her eyes again, staring at her in bemusement. She gathers her courage and holds out her hand. 

“Belle French,” she says brightly. “I’m the new head teacher of English and Drama.” 

“Ran Gold,” he says, with a wry little smile as he takes her hand. “Drama teacher. It looks as if you’re my new boss.” 

Belle stares at him, briefly forgetting how to breathe again. It looks as if her new job is going to be even more challenging than she expected. 


	2. Coffee Shop

They meet by accident at a coffee shop. 

Gold is in a foul mood that day as he stalks into the little coffee shop. He all but slams the door behind him, making the little bell peal wildly. He glares down at his phone, but the text from Regina remains stubbornly unchanged. She’s not coming tonight, even though she promised faithfully that this time she wouldn’t let him down. He shouldn’t be surprised, and he’s not. A lack of trustworthiness runs in her family, after all. He’s still annoyed, though. He’s going to have to do this one by himself, and he still has the last review to write up first. The deadline is looming fast. 

He’s so intent on scowling at his phone that he doesn’t see the person looming in front of him until it’s too late. 

“Oh!” a woman’s voice says, a split second before a body cannons into his and cold liquid spills onto his shirt. 

“I’m sorry I-" the woman begins to say. 

“You stupid fool! Why didn’t you look where you were going!” Gold snarls. 

“Why didn’t you?” she fires back. 

He looks her up and down. She’s young, with long, dark hair. There’s an order pad and a pen stuck in the pocket of her skirt, which is so short that it makes her legs seem longer than they really are. She’s also carrying several cups and saucers, stacked together. They’ve been used, as the cold coffee stains on Gold’s fine linen shirt and previously pristine burgundy silk tie attest. Even without all of those clues to tell him what she is, the harried look on her face can only belong to a busy waitress who's running behind on her orders. 

“Because I’m the customer,” he says with a nasty smile, “and the customer is always right.” 

The waitress has the advantage of him when it comes to height, but he still manages to stare her down. She glares at him in silence, clearly unsure how to respond. 

"Is everything all right over here, Ruby?" asks a different voice, and another waitress appears from behind the first one. This waitress is also young with long dark hair and wearing an almost identical minuscule skirt, but there the similarity ends. She's much shorter for one thing, and she's looking where she's going for another - which is to say, straight at him. Her eyes widen and her lips open on a tiny gasp. Or perhaps Gold just imagined that, because an instant later she's smiling politely, all cool professionalism as she looks from him to her pouting colleague in inquiry. 

"Just a little accident, Belle," Ruby mutters. 

"My silk tie begs to differ," Gold says witheringly. 

"I'm sure we can fix the situation, sir," Belle says smoothly. "If you'd care to take a seat, we'll get you a cup of coffee - and perhaps something to eat? - on the house while we see to getting the stains out of your tie." 

"You do realise that it's a _silk_ tie?" he asks, somewhat to his own surprise. He'd been about to turn and leave. 

"If I can't get the stains out, send us the bill for its replacement," she says. 

"Belle!" Ruby hisses. 

Belle just looks at him, one eyebrow slightly raised as she waits for his answer. Gold stares back, in a way that generally unnerves the unwary, but Belle remains a picture of unruffled calm. He wonders what it would take to discomfit her. 

"Make it a pot of tea, assuming you know how to prepare it properly," he says, reaching up to loosen the Windsor knot at his neck, "and we have a deal." 

Belle smiles, a polite nothing of a smile, and takes the tie from him before leading him over to a booth at the back. And then she's gone while he's still wondering what her real smile looks like. 

He lowers himself into a seat, glad of the degree of privacy the booth affords him. He can't remember the last time he went out in public without wearing a tie. He feels... not naked, but definitely underdressed. And yes, perhaps even a little exposed.

Gold doesn't have high hopes for his tie, or for the possibility of being presented with even a halfway drinkable cup of tea, but he may as well try to get some work done while he waits for them. That was the whole point of coming in here in the first place, after all. He gets out his tablet and its magnetic keyboard, sets it up on the table before him and opens the draft of his latest review. 

He's added several new paragraphs by the time Belle returns with a pot of tea. To his surprise, the pot is made of fine blue on white bone china rather than the glass or stainless steel he'd been expecting. And there's a matching cup and saucer as well, both rimmed in gold. 

"Would you like me to pour?" Belle asks, still displaying that same infuriating calm as before. 

"I don't think I need the personal attention of the manager for that as well," he says. 

It's not much of a shot in the dark, but he's rewarded with a little blink of surprise, the first genuine reaction she's betrayed since the moment she first saw him. 

"How did you know?" she asks. 

"A lowly waitress wouldn't suggest that I send the bill for a replacement tie to 'us'." 

"Ah," she says with a rueful grin. So that's what her real smile looks like. It suits her. 

"Are you the owner as well?" Gold asks. 

Belle doesn't reply at once. He's expecting her to give him a monosyllabic answer and leave him to his tea, but she surprises him by sitting down instead. "I'm the co-owner," she admits as she settles into the seat opposite him. 

"Then you're probably not Granny," he says, with the hint of a smile as he lets his finger rest on the name of the establishment printed at the top of the plastic-covered menu. 

"No, but there really is a Granny. She's Ruby's Granny, actually. She still bakes all of our cakes, but I run things now." 

He waits, but she doesn't volunteer her name. 

"Try the tea," she says, leaning forward. 

"No milk or sugar?" he asks. 

"Just try it and see what you think." 

Gold is not in the habit of doing anything just because someone tells him to, but nevertheless he obediently pours the tea. The brew that emerges is not the brown of a typical low quality supermarket bagged tea but yellow, and not the anaemic yellow of the jasmine tea served in every Chinese restaurant on earth, either. This is stronger, warmer shade that suggests a different sort of tea altogether, and when he lifts the cup to smell its aroma he's sure of just what it is. He takes a sip, and yes, that's it, full-bodied and silky in the mouth like no tea from anywhere else. And there's no trace of astringency to it. She hasn't made the mistake of preparing this tea with boiling water. 

"Did you run out to buy some Taiwan oolong at the boutique tea store around the corner while you were gone?" he asks as he sets the cup back in its saucer. 

"It's on the menu." 

It's his turn to blink in surprise. 

"We're more than just coffee and cake. Or at least, we're starting to be," Belle says earnestly. She smiles hesitantly, all nervous hope. It's a look that suits her much more than the fake poise. "Take a look at the menu. If there's anything there that you'd like to try…" 

"You certainly know how not to ruin a good oolong," he admits, taking another sip of it, "but that's all I want for now." Maybe he'll come back here again. There aren't many places in the city that really know their teas. Besides, he still hasn't found out her last name. 

"Please, Mr Gold, if you'd just-" 

She goes silent, the entire place goes silent, as his tea cup hits the floor. 

"You know who I am," he says flatly, as conversations resume around them and the coffee shop lurches back into life. 

"As soon as I saw you. I read your column every week." 

"And my column has my picture at the top of it." Gold shouldn't feel so disappointed. He's only known her for what? Ten minutes? Fifteen? And why should he be so surprised that her willingness to sit down and talk to him masked an ulterior motive? Why should she take an inexplicable shine to him? Only if it's not inexplicable at all. She's trying to bring this place up a notch, and then who should walk in but the best-known restaurant critic in town. Of course she took her chance. 

"I just thought that maybe if you tried some of the new items on our menu, not just the tea, you'd discover how good they are and maybe you'd mention us - just in passing! - in your column." Belle winces and briefly closes her eyes. "I'm sorry. It was a bad idea. I should have been up front with you from the start." 

She bends to retrieve the cup and places it on the table. It’s still mostly intact, apart from a large chip out of the rim. “I’m sorry about the cup,” he says, before he can stop himself. It's been a long time since he said those words to anybody. Belle has no way of knowing what a rare favour he’s bestowed on her. He almost wishes Regina was here so he could watch her choke in surprise.

“It’s just a cup,” Belle says, smiling in a resigned sort of way. Gold doesn't like this smile nearly as much as the last one. It has too much sadness in it. 

He tells himself he's being ridiculous not to simply get up and leave, but he waits while she crouches down again to wipe the floor with a cloth. 

"I'll go and get your tie," Belle says as she gets up again. And then she flees. There's no other word for it, though to anyone else who might be looking it would appear to be just the brisk walk of a busy waitress. 

Gold looks down at the table. The cup is still sitting there. Belle was in so much haste to be gone that she forgot to take it away. Was it just embarrassment driving her out of the room? Or could she have been feeling the same strange sense of… something, almost like recognition, that's been tugging at him since the moment he laid eyes on her? He doesn't know which seems the more unlikely: that she has been feeling that too, or that she hasn't. 

He picks up the cup and turns it in his hands. He's still staring at it when Belle returns with his tie. 

"Here you go," she says, brightly, or pseudo-brightly. She's trying to project that air of fake calm again, less successfully this time. "Almost as good as new." 

Gold sets down the cup and takes his tie back. He holds it up to the light and eyes it critically. She's right: it is almost as good as new. There's no sign of the coffee stains, or even of a damp patch. 

"How did you manage that?" he asks, frowning. 

"Rubbing alcohol and Ruby's hair dryer," Belle says. 

"So it looks as if I won't have to bill you for a new tie after all." 

"No, you won't." 

He looks down at the cup, and then up at her again. "You shouldn't have tried to play me, even a little bit," he says quietly. 

"No," she says again, but she doesn't look away. Her eyes are an unusual clear blue, and the look in them is just as clear, and hopelessly sincere. _It's not just because of that_ , that look says. If she said it out loud, he wouldn't believe it. It's possible that the look is a lie, too, but… Maybe not. She's not good at maintaining a false front. Her emotions break through too easily. Clearly, he'll need to spend longer than a few minutes in her company to be completely sure. 

"Have dinner with me," he says, rashly, more rashly than anything he's said or done in years. "You'd be doing me a favour," he adds, before she has the chance to turn him down flat. "I'm reviewing Le Gobelet tonight and my dinner companion has cancelled at the last minute. I need someone to try some of the other things on the menu to include in my review." 

"'I tried the beef and my companion had the fish'?" she asks, quoting himself back at him. "What if I don't like fish?" 

"Then have the quail," he says, and lets the tiniest hint of a smile touch his lips. “Come with me. It's not for ever. Just one evening." 

Belle looks at him for a long moment, considering. "All right," she says, "I'll go with you, but only if we come back here afterwards. We have a range of fine teas that I'd like you to try." She grins, and he realises he's being teased. 

"I'll do a paragraph in the sidebar on my next column," he promises, and her grin widens. She doesn't think he's serious. Well, she'll soon find he's rarely anything but. "Well then, I think the deal is struck, Miss…?" He holds out his hand to her across the table. 

"French. Belle French. The deal is struck, Mr Gold," she says. 

"Call me Ran," he says as she takes his hand. He certainly intends to call her Belle, as often and as frequently as possible. He might even devote an entire column to this place while he's at it. 


	3. Regency Ball

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a prequel to [Love's Proper Exercise](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3841609%22%22), which was supposed to be the original Chapter 3 of this story but out-grew it and became its own story. 
> 
> This is their first meeting, ten years before the events of Love's Proper Exercise.

They met, not by their own design, at a ball.

“Curse you, Gold,” complained Mr Hopper, throwing down his remaining cards. “You’ve the devil’s own luck!”

“Lucky at cards, unlucky in love,” quoted Captain Whale, who had had the misfortune to partner Mr Hopper in the rubber of whist that had just concluded. “You had best mind yourself amongst the young ladies in the ballroom tonight, Gold, lest one break that lump of stone in your breast that you call a heart.”

“Just as well I’m not looking for a dance, let alone for love, then, Victor,” Major Gold retorted, gathering up the sizeable pile of bank-notes and hastily scrawled IOUs that he had won this evening. While the whist table at a private ball was not home to the sorts of heavy betting to be found at even the least notorious gaming-hells, Gold and his companions had not been playing for chicken-stakes, either. “Exactly how many vowels do you owe me now?” he added with a lazy smile. It did not do to let anyone off the hook too easily, even such an old friend as Captain Whale.

“Too many!” Whale said, shaking his head. “Will you not stay for another rubber? My luck must surely turn soon and then I will win some of them back from you!”

“It’s not so much luck as skill, but either way I’m done with cards for the evening. You will have to leave your attempts of revenge on me for another time.” Gold went to get up.

The fourth occupant of the table, Sir Maurice French, had merely smiled and said nothing up until now. But then, he had had the good fortune to be Major Gold’s partner at whist. Now he also got to his feet. “A word, if you have a moment, Gold?” he said, after they had made their goodbyes to the others.

“Of course, Sir Maurice,” Gold replied. Unlike Whale and Hopper, who were friends of many years’ standing, Gold had only recently become acquainted with Sir Maurice through their mutual membership of Brooks’s Club. Sir Maurice was somewhat older than the others, a big, bluff man who had the build of the natural outdoorsman now sadly running a little to fat. He looked like a country squire and was, in fact, a baronet, though a rather more well-off and well-connected baronet than one might suspect at first glance.

“I’m wishful to introduce you to my daughter. She’s here tonight, so it won’t take but a moment—if you’re willing.”

“I should be delighted to make Miss French’s acquaintance,” Gold replied, careful to maintain an expression of polite interest while his mind raced. Why would Sir Maurice wish to introduce Gold to his daughter? Like Sir Maurice, Gold was quite well-connected, but since his father had been the younger son of a younger son, very little of the vast wealth of his noble forebears had passed down to him. His father’s cousin, the current Lord Gold, had bought him a pair of colours when he had expressed a desire to go into the army, but that was all. He had only his army pay to live on, which was enough to support a bachelor in reasonable comfort but nothing more. In short, Gold was hardly a marriage prospect that would find favour in the eyes of even the least ambitious of parents of marriageable daughters—which suggested very strongly to him that Sir Maurice’s daughter was not very marriageable at all. It seemed all too likely that she would prove to be big and bluff like her father, and probably horse-faced into the bargain. She would, no doubt, find him equally disappointing. He was not especially handsome, or especially young, at least as young ladies judged such things, and he had no interest at all in taking a wife.

They entered the ballroom just as a scotch reel was coming to an end. Gold glanced quickly around the edges of the dancefloor, searching for any likely looking young lady sitting out the dancing. He had just settled on a young lady of rather Amazonian proportions when Sir Maurice, looking in quite the opposite direction, exclaimed: “Ah, there she is. There’s my Belle.”

The simple pride in the father’s voice was Gold’s first clue that he had been entirely wrong in ascribing Sir Maurice’s motives in desiring to introduce Gold to his daughter. The sight of Miss French herself, laughing up at her partner as he led her from the dancefloor, was his second clue. She looked little like her father, only the shade of her masses of chestnut hair, dressed in the Antique Roman style, being similar. Her eyes were a striking sky blue, set in an unusual, heart-shaped face, and she wore a dress of fashionable primrose yellow cut low across the bosom that set off to advantage a neat little figure that was anything but Amazonian. Indeed, she was so small and slight that she should have seemed a sad little squab of a thing. Instead, her lack of inches only served to make everyone around her appear overgrown. Even Gold, hardly a tall man, towered over her—or would, were she to notice his existence.

And then she did notice him, or, at least, she glanced in his direction in polite inquiry as she came to join them. Sir Maurice wasted no time in performing the introductions.

"Belle, my dear, may I present my friend, Major Gold of the 52nd Regiment of Foot. Gold, my daughter."

"How do you do, Miss French? I am delighted to make your acquaintance," Gold said, making a slight bow. The words were only what politeness dictated, but for once they were also the simple truth.

"How do you do, Major? My father has spoken of you to me on several occasions." Even her voice was beautiful, low and well-modulated. She smiled, a smile that spoke of good manners and little else. But then, why should a young lady feel anything but polite boredom at having one of her father's friends introduced to her? It was plain now that Sir Maurice's only motive in doing so was to show off the daughter in whom he took such obvious pride to his friend. No other thought had crossed his mind. No doubt Miss French viewed Gold in the light of some uncle previously unknown to her.

When had he grown so old?

He looked down into those so very blue eyes and tried to think of what to say as the seconds ticked by. He knew that his friends in the card room would be astonished to see Gold, the master of the witty rejoinder, quite lost for words.

"Are you enjoying the dancing?" he blurted out before the silence grew too painfully long, just as Sir Maurice said, "Belle, would you—"

He made a small bow of apology to Sir Maurice, who waved a hand to indicate that Gold should continue his conversation—such as it was—with Miss French.

"Oh, yes, I do love to dance," Miss French replied, her brow creased in a slight frown as she looked at him.

"Perhaps you will do me the honour of standing up with me before the evening is done?"

"Alas, I am engaged for every dance for the rest of the evening. Perhaps another time?"

"Perhaps." For the first time in more years than he wished to count, Gold felt like a callow youth. Of course a gentleman would have to arrive early to secure a dance with Miss French. No doubt she had half the _ton_ at her feet.

Before Gold managed to think of anything else to say, a tall, dark-haired young man joined them.

"Miss French, I believe you are promised to me for the next dance," he said.

"Indeed I am, Lord Gaston." Miss French sounded just as unfailingly polite as when Gold had been introduced to her. The only crumb of comfort to be had was that at least she sounded no warmer when addressing Lord Gaston. "I don't know if you know Major Gold?"

"I have not had the pleasure," Lord Gaston said, casting Gold a cursory glance. "Major." He made the slightest of bows.

"Lord Gaston." Gold's answering bow was a match for his lordship's.

"If you'll excuse us, we must take our places for the cotillion." Lord Gaston nodded first to Sir Maurice and then to Gold.

"A pleasure to have met you, Major Gold," Miss French said as Lord Gaston took her hand and led her out onto the dancefloor.

And with that she was gone.

Gold remained where he was, watching as the orchestra struck up and the dancing got back underway. 

"My Belle is a graceful dancer, is she not?" Sir Maurice observed, and Gold almost jumped. He had all but forgotten Sir Maurice's presence.

"Very much so," Gold agreed, as they watched Miss French dance the steps of the first change, an _allemande_. Gold did not fail to notice that Lord Gaston was not so light on his feet as Miss French, besides being far too tall for her. "She is an accomplished young lady. A daughter to be proud of," he made himself say. _Daughter._ She was his friend's daughter. She could be no more than twenty—not young enough to be _his_ daughter, then. Not quite.

Gold knew he must leave. Even someone of Sir Maurice's rather limited powers of perception would notice if Gold simply stood and stared at Miss French for the entirety of the cotillion. It was almost a physical effort, as well as a mental one, to drag his eyes from her.

"I must be going," he told Sir Maurice. "No doubt I shall see you at Brooks's."

"I look forward to our next rubber of whist," Sir Maurice said, patting his coat pocket.

With that, Gold turned, very determinedly, and left the ballroom without a backward glance.

He thought of Miss French as he took his leave of his hostess, Lady Jefferson, as he went out the front door into Berkeley Square, and as he flagged down a hackney and instructed the jarvey to convey him to his lodgings in Clarges Street. 

He thought of her as he blew out the candle by his bed and settled down to sleep.

He was still thinking of her when he rose again, hours later but long before his valet had stirred. 

He needed to see Miss French again, to speak with her properly. Then he would surely find some fault in her. She was probably a beautiful ninnyhammer, uninterested in anything save dancing and the latest fashions, and flirting with young gentlemen at balls.

She had not flirted with Lord Gaston, though. Nor… anyone else.

He needed to see her again. There was no help for it: today he would call upon her father, and hope very much that Miss French also was At Home. 

It was ridiculous. It was pathetic. It was… well, it was hardly love. It was at best an infatuation that would no doubt prove to be as brief as it was violent. He did not know Miss French, and once he did the disenchantment would soon set in. Regardless, Gold did not intend to fail at it until it was indeed over. 

Captain Whale's prophecy of his being unlucky in love might prove correct—but this was not love, and he was entirely capable of making his own luck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Telanu for looking this chapter over for me.


	4. The Enchanted Forest (Sex Pollen)

They meet by accident in a garden in the enchanted forest.

“Don’t!” Rumpelstiltskin shouts, throwing out a hand. But it’s too late to stop it even with his magic and all he can do is watch as the sneeze sends pollen in all directions. A door slams behind him.

The young woman sneezes again. She’s standing at the edge of a huge garden bed full of tall, weed-like plants covered in yellow flowers. There are dozens of blossoms on each long stem, all of them heavy with pollen. The woman has one in her hand, broken off halfway down the stem. She must have held it up to her nose to smell when she sneezed the first time. She drops the flower as she sneezes a third time, and clouds of pollen waft into the air.

She pulls a fine, lace-edged handkerchief from her bodice and wipes her nose.His eyes are caught by the movement of her long, pale neck as she swallows convulsively. Her breasts heave as they strain against the tight bodice of her dress with the effort of suppressing another sneeze. Her skin here looks silky soft and is as pale as that on her neck, or would be if not for the delicate flush that colours it now.

She looks up and stiffens as she finds his eyes on her.

He drags his eyes away from her breasts, surprised at himself. It’s not like him to be so obvious. At least, he doesn’t think it’s like him. He— He frowns, thinking hard, or trying to. His eyes widen in shock and he goes completely still.

He can’t remember who he is. Not his name, nor anything about who he is or where he is or why he’s here. Or who she is, for that matter.

“Is this your garden?” the woman asks. She’s watching him carefully. Warily.

“No,” he says at once. He doesn’t know, of course, but she doesn’t need to know that. His mind is still racing, trying desperately to find an answer that seems to have simply ceased to be there.

“Oh,” she says. “I thought—“

She gives a little cry of surprise and jumps back. He doesn’t blame her for that. If he’d been standing even a little closer, he probably would have done the same.

A large hourglass hangs above the garden bed, and as he watches, letters—words—form in the air beside it. They look as if they’re made out of flame, but they give off no heat.

_All effects will last for one hour. After the hour has passed, the door will open and you may leave._

He turns swiftly, remembering the sound of the slamming door. And yes, there it stands in the garden wall: not a garden gate, but an actual door, ornately carved and lavishly gilded. It would not look out of place inside a palace. He knows there’s no point in trying the doorknob. The door is no doubt sealed by something vastly more powerful than any mechanical lock.

“So, it’s not your garden, but is it your magic?” the woman asks.

“Why would you think the magic is mine?” he asks in reply. Answer a question with a question. The best form of defence is offence. At least he hasn’t forgotten that much.

“Well, you look…” The woman waves a hand at him in explanation.

He looks down at himself. He’s richly dressed in silk and velvet and leather. He lifts his hand to his chest and his breath catches at the sight. It’s a hand but it’s… not. It’s shaped like an ordinary hand but the skin is grey-green and the nails are long and quite black. He brings his hand up in front of his face to inspect it properly, turning it one way and then the other. Tiny flecks of glitter sparkle as they catch the light. The palm of his hand looks much as it should, if nothing like the proper colour, but the back looks rough. He clasps his hands together and rubs his right thumb across the back of his left hand. The skin feels less like sandpaper than he had feared and more like that of a lizard or a snake. It’s smooth in places, but criss-crossed with dozens of fine lines and grooves.

He wonders what sort of face must go with hands like these.

“You can’t remember who you are, either, can you?” the woman asks. She’s looking a little less wary of him now. That might even be sympathy he can see in her eyes. They’re pretty eyes, beautiful eyes, blue like the sky, set in a pink-cheeked, heart-shaped face. And her lips are—

“No,” he admits, looking quickly away and thrusting his hands into his pockets. There seems little point in lying about it, particularly to someone who is similarly afflicted. They’re stuck here for an hour, presuming the message still floating gently in the air isn’t a lie or some sort of trap, and it wouldn’t take more than a few moments of conversation before his lack of memory became obvious. He can only hope that that is one of the “effects” to which the message refers and that his memory will return an hour from now.

“So this might be your garden,” the woman goes on. “For all you know, I mean.”

“It might,” he agrees. “Or it might be yours.”

“Maybe, but I don’t think I’m the sort of person who’s likely to know magic.” She looks him straight in the eyes, unafraid of whatever it is she sees before her. Or, at least, unwilling to show her fear. “Why don’t you try using magic to get us out of here. I’d attempt to climb over the wall, but there are spikes at the top.”

He glances over at the wall. She’s right. A double row of short, nasty-looking black spikes runs all the way along the top of the wall, leaving no space for a handhold. Somehow, he has no difficulty believing that, if not for the spikes, she would already be climbing the wall, dainty blue dress, heeled shoes, heaving bosom and all.

He turns to look over at the door. He’s not really expecting anything to happen but he holds his hand, palm out, towards the door and stares at it, concentrating as hard as he can. To his shock, he feels the magic gathering in around him immediately, as if the very air is closing in and growing heavy, all its weight and power waiting to be directed and unleashed.

“No,” he says, dropping his hand and turning back to her.

The woman’s eyes narrow at him, and she takes a step away from him. “Why?” she asks.

“Because I don’t know what spell it is or who cast it, of course!” he snaps, the answer coming out of his mouth before he has a chance to wonder about it. “Magic isn’t something to be played with, something to be _tried_. You need to know exactly what you’re doing, and even then it’s not without its dangers.”

“How do you know all that? I thought you couldn’t even remember who you are?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know how I know it. I just do.”

“Then I suppose we’re stuck here for the next hour.” The woman sighs heavily, her breasts rising and falling slowly. She reaches up to adjust her fichu and her hand lingers at the neckline of her bodice a moment. Her fingers move gently against her skin once, twice, almost as if she’s stroking her breast. She drops her hand quickly and bites her lip as she looks over at the flowerbed, apparently fascinated by the sea of golden blooms.

He swallows hard, and tugs at the silk cravat at his neck. The knot feels suddenly too tight, and his skin is damp and sweaty under his collar. He’s feeling quite warm now, though it’s not a hot day. The sun is out, but the tall trees surrounding this end of the garden keep it mostly in shade. It’s probably just the tension of the situation, of the not knowing, that’s making him sweat.

“There’s no sense in just standing here for an hour. I think I’ll sit down,” the woman says, indicating a long bench set back from the garden bed.

She doesn’t suggest that he accompany her, but he follows anyway. She sits at one end of the bench, arranging her skirts around her but still leaving plenty of room for him beside her.

He doesn’t sit down.

She looks up at him and he stares back, making a determined effort to keep his eyes on her face. He’s so terribly aware of her, sitting there just out of his reach. It’s like something physical, the knowledge that she is so very close.

She looks away, across the garden to the hourglass where the falling sand marks the time they have left to wait. She sighs, and reaches up absently to wet the tip of her finger with her tongue before stroking it along her lower lip. Her lip glistens, soft and full and inviting.

Now he’s the one to sigh. He drags his eyes from her mouth, though there’s nothing else he’d rather be looking at right now. Nothing in this world.

Almost nothing.

His gaze moves down the line of her neck again, and then strays lower before he can stop himself—not that he’s trying very hard to stop himself. Her breasts are rising and falling quickly as he watches, the gentle swell of them only hinting at the full glory that lies confined beneath her bodice. Maybe she’ll touch herself again. Maybe she’ll slip her fingers in under the edge of her bodice this time or reach down and loosen the laces and let her breasts spill free.

His cock throbs and his leather breeches feel tighter than they should. She’s not the only one who’s breathing a little heavily now.

“How does it feel?” she asks, looking up at his face.

“What?” he says blankly.

"Your skin," she says. "It looks—"

"Strange? Rough? _Monstrous_?" he interrupts harshly. Her words are as effective as being dashed with cold water.

She shakes head. "You're not a monster. I was going to say 'interesting'," she says, getting to her feet.

"You're an odd girl," he says, watching her warily as she steps closer.

"How do you know that if you can't remember any other girls?"

"I—"

She reaches out and touches him, stroking gently along his temple and over his cheekbone, and the world contracts to just the two of them and the place where her skin touches his. He has no idea what he was about to say. He grabs her hand, stopping her stroking fingers in their tracks, and holds her palm hard against his cheek. Then he turns his head and presses a kiss into the inside of her wrist.

"Oh," she breathes, and her eyes flutter almost closed.

He wants so badly to touch her properly, to feel her under his hands, to kiss her, everywhere, to explore every perfect, naked inch of her with hands and lips and tongue. To feel her clench around his cock.

He grits his teeth and forces himself to let go of her hand. The loss of contact cuts through him like a physical pain.

"You're feeling it, too." He doesn't bother to make it a question. It's obvious.

She sinks back down onto the bench without trying to touch him again. He tries, and fails, to feel grateful about that. Her chest is heaving, the skin wildly flushed. He wonders how far down the flush extends.

He shifts in place, barely stopping himself from reaching down and adjusting himself right there in front of her. His breeches feel uncomfortably tight now, his cock heavy with want and straining against the leather.

He forces his eyes back up and finds that she's watching him, but she's not looking at his face. Her eyes are fixed on the front of his breeches, her lips slightly parted as her breath comes fast.

He turns his back to her without another word, because he knows that if he waits even one more second he won't be able to do anything but fall at her feet. All he can think of is her mouth on him, how soft and wet and wonderful it would feel. How little it would take to make him come. His cock jerks and he reaches down to shift it into a less uncomfortable position. He fails at that. The only comfort would be to rid himself of his breeches and take himself in hand, to stroke his cock hard and rough until he comes, until his skin is raw, until he doesn't want her any more.

Or he could just stand here and wait until the hour is up.

He looks down at the ground and tries to count every blade of grass between the toe of his boot and the gravel path. He listens to the birds call to each other in the trees outside the garden and the wind whispering through leaf and twig and branch. The birds don't fly into the garden, though. In the time they've been in here he hasn't even noticed a bird flying overhead. It's as if the garden is somehow sealed off above, with a great, invisible ceiling that still lets through the light and noise.

"The message by the hourglass mentioned "effects". More than one. More than just forgetting who we are," the woman says hesitantly.

He's turned around to face her before she's finished speaking, before he realises he's even doing it.

"Why would anyone do such a thing?" the woman continues, making a gesture with her arms that encompasses the two of them. 

He follows the movement with his eyes, noticing the way her neckline shifts, revealing a touch more bare skin, and how her breasts thrust forward. He swallows. It's going to be a long, hard road to the end of the hour.

He looks down at his boots, trying to focus on her question instead of her body. _Too many reasons_. That's what he could say, and it's true. He can easily think of a dozen situations in which it would be useful to make someone forget everything for a short while, or to make someone—two people—so distracted that they forget everything but each other. But why this situation? There's nothing of apparent value in the garden, and, even if there were, or if there were something nearby that they were being kept _from_ , it would be just as easy to lock them in here without drugging them, or whatever it is that's been done to them. Unless it's _not_ the two of them that have been locked in. Or not only the two of them…

"It's the flowers, probably the pollen," he says, punching his fist into his palm. "That's what's doing it. Maybe they only produce this effect for an hour. Regardless, that's why we've been sealed in here: because they've been sealed in here too."

The woman nods. "That makes sense," she says, leaning back against the bench's wooden slats and sighing. 

The new position displays her breasts to advantage. His eyes caress the curve of them, taking in their every rise and fall. His lips curl into a small, mocking smile directed squarely at himself. He can focus on abstract ideas all he likes, work out every last detail of what has brought them to this, but all she has to do is breathe deeply and she has his undivided attention. 

She closes her eyes for a moment and lets out a long sigh. "Come and sit with me." She pats her hand on the bench close beside her. 

"I shouldn't." But he wants to. "We both know what will happen if I go over there." And how he wants that. Except that he can't let himself have it.

"Yes," she says. " _Please_ ," she adds on a shaky breath. 

That nearly breaks him, but by some huge exertion of willpower that he's more than a little surprised to discover within him he prevents his feet from taking him where every fibre of his body wants to go. "You could be anyone. _I_ could be anyone," he points out. "Do you want to live with that sort of regret once we get out of here?"

"You could be my husband. I could be your wife," she points out in turn. "We could have done this a hundred times before. A thousand times." She blinks, slowly. Her eyes look heavy-lidded and sleepy. She would seem almost relaxed, leaning back on the bench like that, if not for the feverish glint to her eyes, which appear to be a far darker blue than they were when he first looked into them, and the hectic colour in her cheeks.

"I could be your husband, but we both know that I'm almost certainly not." What woman would have a creature with glittering grey-green skin? Besides, he'd bet everything he owns—and his clothing suggests that he's not lacking in wealth—that she has no husband. She must be old enough to be married but she's dressed like a girl, not a matron. Her dark brown hair is hanging down around her shoulders, not pinned up. He'd be surprised if she's ever lain with any man…

He'll be the first, _if_ they do this, which they won't because her innocence is just one more reason not to. He can live with the future regrets, he's sure of it, but could she? Seeing reproach in those blue eyes of hers in the days to come would be worse than never touching her at all.

The woman lets out a breath, but it's more of a huff than a sigh this time. She reaches down and tugs at her fine linen fichu, pulling it free. Then she starts on the laces of her bodice.

He stands stock still and forgets how to breathe. His mouth doesn't go dry. It waters at the first sight of her small, softly rounded breasts tipped with pale brown nipples that are already wrinkled and hard and ready to feel his mouth on them. They're lovelier than he ever imagined—and he's spent a _lot_ of time imagining them in the past few minutes.

There isn't enough willpower in all the realms to keep him from her after that.

He throws himself down on the bench beside her and reaches out to cup her breast with a trembling hand. It's so soft, the skin silky smooth to his touch. It's beautiful. It's perfect. It's not enough. He needs to touch her with more than a single hand. Groaning, he buries his face between her breasts, or tries to. They're not really large enough for that, but he rubs his cheek up and down between them and then kneads one roughly with one hand while he explores the other with lips and tongue, smothering it in kisses and nips that are rewarded with breathy little moans from above. His mouth closes around one pebbled nipple just as his fingers tweak hard at the other. The woman lets out a cry and arches against him, clutching his head to her.

For a moment he can barely breathe, and it's remarkable how little he cares about that. There are far worse ways to go. He rubs his face against her again, breathing in the scent of her, the tang of sweat mixed with a hint of something sweeter and the warmth of her skin. Her breasts are so soft and smooth. He doesn't think he'll ever grow tired of the feel of them. His skin must feel rough against her, not to mention the stubble on his cheeks, but she makes no protest.

And then it's all gone. She pushes him away from her, with surprising force, and he's left sitting there, blinking, and wondering what just happened. The imperative that draws them together is powerful, but maybe even that isn't enough when she's confronted with the reality of his hideous hands pawing at her?

She leans close and closes her hand around his cock through the leather of his breeches. He arches up into her touch, his head falling against the back of the bench with an audible 'thunk' as he gasps and tries desperately not to ruin everything by coming before he's even taken off his breeches.

He slumps back onto the bench and pushes her hand off him.

"Sorry," she says at once, clasping her hands firmly in her lap. "I didn't mean to do anything wrong. I just… I _need_ to touch you. I feel as if I'm going to die of it if I don't." She gives him an apologetic smile, the sort of polite little social gesture that belongs in a respectable lady's drawing room while taking tea. Meanwhile, there's absolutely nothing respectable about the way her bodice hangs open exposing her breasts to the air—or about the way in which her other hand has started stroking his thigh. That alone is enough to make his stomach clench, to make his cock strain even harder against the confining leather.

"You didn't do anything wrong," he says. "Just give me some warning first."

"All right," she says. "I'm going to unlace your breeches." The smile she gives him now is neither apologetic nor respectable. "I told you: I _need_ to touch you." Her hand moves further up but the smile never leaves her lips.

Gods, he wants to fuck her. He wants to fuck her until she comes harder than she ever has or ever will again, until her cries grow hoarse, until she's forgotten… well, she's already forgotten everything. Everything but how much she needs to touch him.

She rests her hand against his hip and that almost undoes him before she even starts on the laces of his breeches. He helps her with the knot, but they're both clumsy in their haste so he leaves her to the rest. She pulls him to his feet so that she can more easily loosen the laces and tug his breeches down. The leather is so tight that he doesn't wonder that he has magic; it's surely the only way he ever would have got into these breeches in the first place. He could probably magic them off into thin air right now, but...

He watches her, bent over her task, bent over him, and he just wants to pull her against him, to feel her there on his bare skin. His cock is desperate for her touch—whether hand or mouth or cunt doesn't matter much so long as he gets it _soon_ \- but he knows a moment's dread a second or two before at last his cock springs free of its confinement.

He breathes a sigh of relief. Apart from the colour, it looks the way a cock is supposed to look. He wraps his hand around it, and yes, the skin is just as smooth as it should be, like the palms of his hands and—probably—the soles of his feet, and it feels hot and heavy in his palm.

A tiny noise from beside him makes him glance at the woman. Her lips are slightly parted and her breath is coming rapidly. She's looking at him, but most definitely not at his face.

He pulls on his cock, slow and firm, and watches her eyes darken and her breasts heave. Maybe he could make them both come just by jerking himself off, without either of them ever touching the other. Maybe he could, but he doesn't want that, and neither does she. He takes her hand and draws it over to his cock.

"Feel it, how hot it is, how hard. You did that. It's all for you."

Her breath is coming even faster now. She closes her fingers around his cock and slowly pulls on it, mimicking his action of a moment ago.

He closes his eyes. "Yes, like that," he says hoarsely, swallowing hard as he tries to find the rest of his voice.

"Sit down," she says, giving him a little push with one hand. Her other hand slides slowly up his cock and leaves it waving forlornly in the air, bereft.

He sits.

She follows him down onto the bench, half-sitting, half-lying as she reaches for his cock again.

He lets out a shuddering breath and lets his head fall back against the bench as she takes him in hand. Her hands are soft and warm, though not so soft as her breasts, which press against his thigh as she leans in even closer. He reaches down to fondle her breast and feels her breath hot against his cock as his finger circles her nipple ungently.

She whimpers, and then he feels her mouth, soft and wet and hesitant against the side of his cock.

He bites down hard on his bottom lip to stop himself from crying out, to stop himself from coming all over her at the first touch of her beautiful full lips. 

"Just… just your hands," he gasps, pressing his free hand to her cheek. His other hand is still busy at her breast. She hasn't even sucked him yet. If she does, he won't need to worry about _almost_ coming.

More soft wetness— _her tongue_ —swipes across the head of his cock, and her lips close around it as she sucks. Hard. He cries out, and then he's bucking up into the irresistible wet heat of her mouth, the urgent movements of her tongue driving him higher and higher yet until it's too much to bear. His muscles clench and his breath catches and then he's spending himself over and over in long, ecstatic pulses and the world is nothing but glorious sensation.

It's over too soon. He keenly feels the loss of her when she lifts her head while his heart is still thundering in his ears. He opens his eyes to find her wiping the corner of her mouth with her lacy handkerchief. Her lips are glistening and he knows that if he were to kiss her now he'd taste himself there.

The thought makes his cock twitch, as if it's ready for another round already. He should feel ashamed of himself for coming in her mouth, but… he doesn't.

She's sitting up beside him, watching his face, and there's no trace of regret to be seen in her expression. He'd thought her untouched, but that can't be the face of an innocent, which is really just as well. She looks pleased with herself, as smug as a cat with the best place by the hearth, but her eyes are still fever bright and her skin is still flushed and she moves restlessly against the bench, as if she's finding it impossible to find a comfortable position.

He might not be ready for more just yet, whatever his cock might wish to think, but there can be no doubt that _she's_ ready. More than ready. He lifts a hand to one breast, kneading it hard, and smiles as she closes her eyes and shudders. He pulls back the edges of her bodice, revealing more smooth, pale skin. He slips a hand beneath the soft blue muslin and strokes her side, letting his fingers map the shape of her. Closing his eyes, he tries to commit the feel of her to memory—assuming that he remembers any of this after their hour is done.

She places her hand over his and moves it back up to her breast.

"Please," she says, her voice barely more than a whisper, and he knows she's not asking for a breast rub. Or not only that.

She doesn't have to ask. Just the thought of her face twisted in pleasure is enough to make his cock twitch again. Never taking his eyes off her face, he reaches down and grasps the hem of her dress, dragging the skirt up over her thighs, revealing her underwear. Then, starting at her knee, he strokes his hand in slow, circular movements up along the thin fabric of her drawers while his other hand moves in echoing circles at her breast. She squirms and her breath catches, and then he doesn't waste any time in slipping his hand up under her skirt. He pushes gently against her inner thigh and she opens her legs to him. He's not sure she's even fully conscious of the action. Her expression doesn't change; she's still watching his face avidly. It's only when he reaches the very centre of her that her head falls back and her legs close together around his hand—and he discovers, to his relief, that she's not wearing the new style of drawers that cover everything up. His fingers touch a thatch of surprisingly soft, springy hair, then slide lower, down between her nether lips, to find warm, slippery wetness. He's having to strain his wrist to maintain the position of his hand, though. He's not going to be able to keep this up for long.

When he removes his hand from between her legs, she makes a small, unhappy sound.

"Don't—" she begins, but he lays a finger against her lips.

"I'm not stopping," he says. "It's just the angle. It's awkward." 

"So what should we try instead?" she asks.

"You could get on my lap," he suggests.

She doesn't need to be asked twice. A moment later he has a lapful of warm, willing—more than willing, _impatient_ —young woman with her arse pressed up against his still-not-terribly-soft cock. 

He slips one hand back under her skirts while the other goes unerringly to her breast. He strokes down between her legs and soon his fingers are coated  with her juices. He moves his hand back up and finds the sensitive little nub just above her folds, sliding his fingers over it once and then again until her breath hitches.

"Is this what you want?" he asks, nuzzling the side of her neck.

"More." She presses his hand hard against her so that he's cupping her sex.

"So greedy," he whispers against her ear, and she groans. He doesn't move his hand, not to take it away, not to do anything.

She whimpers and squirms against him, and he laughs, a deep chuckle that somehow feels rusty with disuse. He can't help but feel that he's not the sort of person who chuckles easily or often. That can wait, though. Right now, he simply doesn't care about who he'll be when the door opens again.

He rocks his hand against her and she cries out. This time he doesn't deny her. He moves his hand again, circling her clit with two fingers. His other hand squeezes her breast and she arches back against him. In another moment she's found a rhythm and all he has to do is give her what she needs and come along for the ride. He's not chuckling now. Before he knows it, he's gasping against her neck as she rocks forward onto his hand and then back against his definitely-not-soft-at-all cock. He wishes desperately that he'd pulled off her drawers, and her dress as well, so that now he could feel her bare backside sliding against his cock. He pushes back against her, mimicking the act of love minus the best part of it. His fingers are soaked now. He tries not to imagine sinking his cock into the hot, wet depths of her. He groans and his cock jerks hard against her. 

He only came a few moments ago, and now he's suddenly ready to go again, before she's even made it there the first time.

She's moving faster now, whimpering with need, desperate to come but… perhaps not quite sure how to get there? After she'd sucked him, he'd been sure that she was not the innocent he'd previously thought her, but perhaps that had been the result of sheer desperate need rather than experience. He hadn't required much to send him over the edge, in the state he'd been in.

She doesn't require much now. He shoves two fingers up into her as his thumb presses down above her clit and the fingers of his other hand are a blur at her breast. She bucks her hips and goes rigid as she clenches hard around his fingers, and the cry that leaves her lips goes on and on and on.

He smiles against her neck.

Eventually she quiets and flops against him, turning in his lap to lean her head against his shoulder. Hesitantly, he reaches up to stroke her hair and she breathes out a long, contented  sigh. He supposes that they would present a romantic, idyllic picture to a casual observer—if not for the fact that the bodice of her dress hangs open while her skirt is up about her waist, and he's sitting there with his breeches very nearly down around his knees while he tries not to let his erection press too obviously against her hip.

His hand keeps stroking her hair, slowly teasing out the tangles and snarls and pushing it back from her face. There's something hypnotic about his careful, wordless ministrations. It comes as much of a surprise to him as to her when his hand cups her jaw and he slowly swipes the pad of his thumb across her lips.

She lifts her head to stare at him. He stares back, frozen in the moment.

She takes his face in her hands and kisses him, less than expertly. He can't help smiling a little at that, and warmth floods back through him as his arms come around her. He kisses her back, gently teasing at her lips with his tongue, encouraging them open. Unalloyed need has driven her to work out how to get everything else she's wanted from him since they began, but the mechanics of a simple kiss, the most basic of intimate touches, present the greatest challenge.

She's a fast learner, though. It's not long before the kiss has turned deep and hungry and his cock is throbbing with the need for more than just her lips.

She draws back, sleepy-eyed and blinking at him, her lips still slightly parted. They look red and full and well-kissed, and crying out to be kissed some more.

"It's strange," she says, toying with a lock of his hair hanging down beside his face. "I thought after… all that, that I was done. And I thought that you were, too."

"Yes?" he says, watching her face carefully and waiting for whatever might come next.

"But here you are, ready for more." She reaches for his cock and squeezes it gently before letting it slip through her fingers.

He lets out a long breath and has to swallow twice before he finds voice enough to ask, "And you?"

"I feel... empty," she admits, biting her lip in consternation. "I feel like I need to be filled."

It's all he can do not to push her back against the slats and take her, then and there.

"Lie down," he says, unsteadily, and then, when she slips off his lap onto the bench, "No, not here. On the ground." They're going to need some proper space for this.

She does as he bids her, getting down onto the ground and lying back on the perfectly manicured lawn. He was intending to stand back and consider how best to approach this before he touched her again, but seeing her lying there, spread out before him like a feast for his senses… He's on the ground beside her and paying homage to her breasts again before he really knows what he's doing. He rubs his cheek against them, kisses and caresses them, rediscovering them. He'll never tire of her breasts, even if he wanted to, which he most surely doesn't, but he wants to feel more of her bare skin pressed against his, too. He wants to explore every inch of her, but her dress is getting in the way.

She sighs, and he feels her fingers tangling in his hair as her other hand grips his bare arse, pulling him closer, or trying to. It's difficult to move with his legs entangled in his leather breeches, which are now at half mast and impeded by the tops of his boots. There's altogether too much fabric between them. 

It's just as well that he has magic. 

He concentrates on her clothing, and his, and draws the power in close before letting it go again. He blinks in surprise as the two of them are enveloped in purple smoke. When it clears, much faster than ordinary smoke would, her dress is gone and she's lying there in her chemise and… in her chemise. The chemise's thin straps are halfway down her arms and it's covering very little of her. He seems to have retained his shirt, though it's open almost to the waist, but the impractical leather breeches have disappeared, along with his boots, and his waistcoat and cravat. 

She looks him over and, thankfully, doesn't cringe at the sight of his bare, no doubt rough and glittery skin, before looking down at her own sudden lack of clothing.

"That's convenient," she says, blushing ever so slightly, but making up for it by wrapping her hand around his cock.

"Oh yes," he says as his hand slips between her legs. She's even wetter than before. He takes a deep breath and wills himself not to move. He wants to bury his face there, between her legs, to fill up his senses with the taste and smell of her. But she needs to be filled. "Lift your knees and open your legs," he says.

She does so immediately, lying back on her elbows and watching his every move. Her breasts are heaving and her lips are parted. She looks… ready. He shifts closer, so he's kneeling between her legs, and then he's above her, propping himself up on one hand while the other draws hers back down to his cock.

"Guide me," he whispers roughly, eyes fixed on her face as the head of his cock nudges the place where his fingers have lately been.

She grips his cock and pulls him even closer, and then he's pushing in slowly, gently. She's just as soft and slippery as he'd imagined, and she's still gripping him, but not with her hand now. It's just too good. He groans, and plunges his cock the rest of the way into her. 

She makes a little yelp of surprise, but no accompanying wince of pain. Has she really never done this before? There are many ways for a girl to lose a maidenhead that don't involve a man, though, and she's so wet that there was never any doubt that his cock would slide in easily. He reaches up to cup the side of her face. 

"Wrap your legs around me, my lovely," he whispers.

As soon as she does so, he can tell that she sees the merit in the new angle. "Oh, like that," she breathes, closing her eyes and clenching hard around him.

He pulls back then pushes back in hard, and once he's started he doesn't want to stop, he can't stop, he can't resist, and he's thrusting over and over again while she arches her hips and meets him thrust for thrust and they find the rhythm together.

It's good. It's better than good. It's the best he's ever had, he's sure of it, even though he might be the virgin—recent virgin—here for all that he can remember ever lying with a woman before.

He seems to know how to pleasure a woman, though. She's shuddering and moaning beneath him and he's not touching her anywhere but where they're joined. He reaches down between them to find her clit and she goes wild, her hands clinging to his back as her nails dig into his skin and she cries out again and again until she's sobbing with the intensity of it all even while she commands him not to stop.

He doesn't want to stop. He wants to feel her and see her and hear her like this with him forever. They're both still only human, though, despite the magic all around them, despite the magic that sparkles on his own skin. He resists the pull of it for as long as he can, biting down on his lip and curling his nails up into his palms to distract himself, but it can't go on like that for long and it doesn't. She tilts her hips up a little more and speeds the pace and then he's there, at the peak, while he's still trying to stop himself from climbing it. He falls, and there's nothing but pulsing, throbbing pleasure, so keen that it teeters on the knife edge of pain.

Afterwards, he sags against her, only his elbows stopping him from fully collapsing on her chest as he buries his face against her neck and tries to get his breath back. Beneath him he can feel her trembling through the aftershocks of her climax.

Eventually, he lifts his head and stares down at her. She stares back, and smiles. It's all showing there in her face, her pleasure in what they've just shared. She's an extraordinary sight, all debauched and gorgeous, lying there beneath him on the ordinary green grass.

He can't help but lean down to capture her lips in a soft, gentle kiss. She kisses him back and he smiles against her lips as she slips her tongue into his mouth.

She's a quick study.

Then she's pushing her tongue in further and in another moment she's all but fucking his mouth with her tongue. 

She's a _very_ quick study.

He lets it happen, lets her do what she will with him. It's not as if he's in a position to do much else just yet. He groans into her mouth as she wriggles beneath him, the walls of her cunt holding him firmly in place. His cock should be softening by now, but she doesn't give it a chance to escape her. And then, impossibly, it throbs with renewed interest.

He's not going soft. Not at all.

They take it slower this time, both of them less frantic as they kiss and moan and caress and fuck for who knows how long, but the climax, when it comes, is no less intense. He looks down into her face and wonders if it's possible to die of too much sex but can't quite bring himself to care about the answer. She looks sated. Replete. _Filled_. And all because of him.

A bell rings somewhere nearby and he hears the sound of a door creaking open. 

Rumpelstiltskin looks down into Belle's face, and then he closes his eyes because he can't bring himself to keep looking and see an expression of disgust form where a moment ago there was only pleasure.

"Rumpelstiltskin," Belle says softly, and he feels her hand, soft against his cheek. She doesn't sound disgusted. "You should have told me."

He opens his eyes again. She's looking up at him without disgust or anger. Maybe she's just in shock. "I should have, yes," he agrees, trying not to move too much and draw her attention to the place where his cock still fills her. "I told you that you had the run of the gardens and to feel free to pick any flower. I didn't expect the door to this garden to open for you, though."

"I don't mean that."

"What, then?" he snaps, trying, without success, to find the mocking, high-pitched tones of the tricksy Imp, the Spinner, the fearsome Dark One. What has he shown her, what has he revealed, all unknowing while he danced to the tune of the flowers' siren song? _Her_ siren song.  "It was the flowers, if you're wondering," he says flatly, trying to glare. "They open for an hour every day. The pollen will make anyone want… things they never wanted before. And forget everything that makes them who they are."

"Why did it make us forget? It seems like a strange sort of effect for a plant to have," Belle says. She sounds genuinely curious, but he knows she's mostly just humouring him by asking the question, showing willing to be distracted for a moment. She'll bring the conversation back around to where she wants it before long. The woman is as tenacious as a bloodhound on a scent.

"And its other effect isn't? You don't think those weeds are the work of Mother Nature, do you?" Rumpelstiltskin laughs harshly. "A foolish witch once tried to create a plant that could be infused to make a love potion, guaranteed to work on anyone at any hour. I believe the phrase "doesn't matter who you are" was used. Instead, she ended up with a flower that causes unbridled lust and complete forgetfulness for the space of an hour."

"So why do you grow them, if they don't work?" Belle asks.

"They don't work as a love potion, but there is still much value to be had in their other… applications."

"Yes," she says, and a tiny smile touches the corners of her mouth as he feels her muscles clamp around his cock. He has at last grown soft and now he slips free of her in a gush of wetness that's not just hers. He can see no hint of a blush on her skin but he feels his own cheeks grow hot. It's not the sort of position a man wants to be discovered in by his maid, after all—particularly when she's taking an active part in it.

"I can make you forget," he says quickly. "Forever, I mean. You won't remember a thing about this. It will be as if it never happened." For her, at least. Rumpelstiltskin won't ever forget this. It's one tiny, perfect memory for him to treasure while so much else in his past is filled with bitter regret: a brief flicker of light amidst an ocean of darkness.

"You should have told me that you wanted to kiss me," she says. Her eyes are clear and blue and see too deeply. They hold his gaze when he wants desperately to look away.

"I don't. I didn't. It was—"

"It wasn't lust, not that first one," she says, and leans up to press a chaste, close-mouthed kiss against his lips.

He should tell her she's wrong. He should push her away. He should make her forget every single moment of the past hour, regardless of what she says she wants. 

He kisses her back, and knows that he won't make her forget. It's not as if it's anything truly important, after all. It's not as if it's love.

~*~

_Belle and Rumpelstiltskin met by magical accident one day in his garden in the enchanted forest. The next time they meet, it's not by accident_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Telanu for looking this chapter over for me.


	5. Storybrooke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an episode tag for 4x22 - Operation Mongoose, Part 2, set a few weeks after the end of Season 4.

They meet on purpose in Storybrooke.

He prepares for the meeting slowly and methodically. He starts by washing his hair, taking his time lathering in shampoo and conditioner, rinsing everything out, and then just standing there, under the hot spray, for far longer than is strictly necessary. Eventually he gets out of the shower and braces one hand against the tiled wall as he slowly, awkwardly, towels himself dry. He stares at his hair in the mirror. It's a mass of stringy, bedraggled rat tails, slowing dripping water in little rivulets down his bare skin. 

It would take only an instant to dry his hair with magic.

He rubs his hair as dry as he can with a towel, and then stands there with a hairdryer for a while, letting his hair blow across his face and, completely coincidentally, hide his reflection from himself. He's never used a hairdryer before and he wonders where this one came from. Is it one of Belle's spares? One that was created along with the room when Storybrooke came into being? Who knows?

He shaves next, and keeps his eyes fixed on the razor in the mirror as he draws it carefully along his jaw. He doesn't know what sort of look is in his eyes and he doesn't want to know. Brushing teeth and hair doesn't take more than a few moments, and doesn't require him to look anywhere near the mirror. It should be a relief when he's finally ready to quit the bathroom, but it's not. Getting away from the look in his own eyes only brings him closer to the moment when he has to go out and face… everything.

He leans on his cane more heavily than he strictly needs to as he goes into the bedroom and pulls open the wardrobe doors. Which suit should he wear today? He doesn't know. Which one does Belle like best? He doesn't know that, either. It doesn't really matter. Every suit he owns is dark, whether charcoal grey, or pinstripe or just plain black. He pulls one out of the wardrobe at random and lays it out on the bed.

The choice of shirt and tie proves more difficult. Not dark. The black on black look is definitely one to be avoided. It draws too much attention to what he isn't—isn't any longer. Red seems too eye-catching, and besides, he doesn't want to wear anything that recalls the colour of blood. Nothing provocative, though perhaps the mere fact of his presence will be provocation enough for some. In the end he chooses a shirt striped in an understated way in different shades of purple, which goes well enough with the faint pin stripes of the suit, and a tie and matching pocket square in a deep lavender.

He winds up brushing his hair again once he's put on his shoes and socks, and then fiddling with the knot of his tie and patting the pocket square into place, but finally he can't delay any longer. He makes himself go downstairs—which takes a while. He'd forgotten how much trouble those stairs are when one is reliant on a cane to keep upright.

Finally he gets to the bottom of the stairs.

He could just stay here. He could call Belle and tell her that something's come up. She'd know it was a lie, though. She'd know that nothing has come up, because nothing at all has happened to him since he woke up three days ago in the shop and she drove him back to the house at his request. He hasn't seen anyone, not even Belle, though she's phoned him several times every day. He hasn't done anything except _be_.

But now she's requested that he meet her for lunch. He can at least do that much for her, after she kept watch over him for weeks while he lay in that long dreamless sleep, helpless and defenceless. 

Well, that much hasn't changed since he woke up.

He makes himself walk to the front door and open it. He stands there for a moment and has to force himself to step over the threshold and out into a hostile world. It’s the first time Gold… no, he’s Rumpelstiltskin. Gold was a front that the Dark One hid behind, and now the Dark One is gone from him. Rumpelstiltskin is what’s left behind.

It’s the first time _Rumpelstiltskin_ has ventured out, even as far as the porch, since Belle drove him back here when he was still stunned from the enormity of what had happened. The darkness had been pulled from him. He was free. He _is_ free.

It’s a clear day in Storybrooke, for a wonder. The sky is a deep blue rarely seen here and the sun shines down on him, bright and warm and unimpeded by a single cloud. There are no shadows to hide in.

He feels exposed. He’s just Rumpelstiltskin again, leaning heavily on his stick as he makes halting progress down the path to his car. He feels uncomfortably close to the lame, powerless spinner that he used to be before the dagger came into his life. At least this time he has wealth, which is a powerful shield in any realm. It should be a greater comfort than it is.

The short drive into town feels like a reprieve. A very temporary reprieve. It's over all too soon.

He feels eyes on him as he almost stumbles getting out of the car, and wants to tell himself that he’s just imagining it. But he’s not. Of course the people of Storybrooke are wary of him. He’s still the same man whose actions adversely affected their lives in so many ways. He has it in him to make the same sorts of choices again, too. The difference is that this time he doesn’t have the power inside, urging him on, magnifying every aspect of who he is and what he is. Now he’s just an ordinary man, a smaller man.

It’s terrifying.

Granny looks up from wiping down the counter as Rumpelstiltskin enters the diner. She narrows her eyes a bit when she sees him, but she doesn't say anything. Rumpelstiltskin looks around, hoping that Belle is already seated at a table, waiting for him.

She's not.

It seems as if almost everybody else in town is here, though, and they're all staring at him. Or that's what it feels like, anyway. Possibly he's exaggerating slightly. When he scans the room as discreetly as he can, he finds that no one's actually looking at him apart from Granny and one of Snow White's dwarfs—and he glares at everyone. 

He hastens, clumsily, to the last available booth and hunches down in his seat, cowering like the self he left behind so long ago—the self that might be all that's left. It's only a second before he makes himself sit up straight. He still _looks_ like Mr Gold, even if he's not. If he can pretend well enough then others will believe. He saw the proof of that over and over again in his centuries as the Dark One.

Except that now he isn't the Dark One. He's just a man, trying to pretend that his money makes him more than that.

"Coffee?" 

Rumpelstiltskin almost jumps. Almost. Instead, he looks up at Granny with the best withering stare he can muster and says, with icy politeness, "Yes, thank you. Nothing else for the moment."

He feels a little better after that, a little more like the man who once effortlessly held this little town in the palm of his hand, particularly when Granny goes away again without another word. Perhaps this—all of this—will be possible.

By the time Granny has returned with his coffee and departed again, and Rumpelstiltskin has choked down almost half a cup of the bitter, bitterly hot, brew, Belle has _still_ not arrived and he's rethinking the art of the possible. He can feel the eyes on him, all around him. It was a mistake, coming here today. He should go, now, before Belle arrives— _if_ she arrives—before he's trapped here until the end of the meal. He feels too much like a cornered wild animal already.

Of course Belle chooses that moment to arrive. She smiles as soon as she spots him and comes hurrying over. There's no getting away now. Not that he really wants to get away any more once he's confronted with the reality of her, smiling a brilliant smile as she takes the seat opposite him. He has braved monsters for her, and witches, and rogues of various descriptions; he can brave Granny and the patrons of her diner, even in his present reduced state.

"I'm glad you came. I didn't know whether you would," she says. She's looking straight at him, but he doesn't mind. Not when it's her eyes on him, not when she smiles at him, however complicated the situation might be between them. 

"Of course I came," he says, his voice raspy and low. He wishes they'd agreed to meet somewhere more private, which would include just about anywhere else in town. But Belle suggested the diner, so here they are.

Her lips turn down into something that's somewhere between smile and frown, and her eyes glisten. They stare at each other across the table. He can't bear to look away, and he wonders if it's the same for her. How he's missed her. It's his own fault, of course. He asked her for space after he woke from the magical dream and she gave it to him. He'd been so stunned, so broken, at the time that even her presence was overwhelming, but not as overwhelming as her absence has become after three days alone.

Her hand is resting on the tabletop. Hesitantly, Rumpelstiltskin reaches out and lays his hand on hers. Her eyes glisten even more at that, and she turns her hand palm up and grasps his.

"Are you ready to order?" 

Rumpelstiltskin glares at Granny. He doesn't even have to work at it this time.

Belle withdraws her hand, and smiles up at Granny. "I'll have fish and chips today, thanks, Granny. And iced mint tea."

"Of course." Granny clicks her tongue, and gives Belle what can only be described as a motherly look. Then she turns a rather more chilly look on Rumpelstiltskin and raises her eyebrows in enquiry.

"Fish and chips, too. And more coffee," he adds, though he knows he'll probably regret it. In all the time he's been coming here, Granny has never been able to not burn the coffee at least a bit, though possibly she only does that to his.

They're silent when Granny is gone again. 

"How have you bee-"

"How are you fee-"

They both speak at once, and then both break off at once. 

Rumplestiltskin looks down at his coffee, feeling... It takes a moment for him to identify the emotion. Embarrassment. How long has it been since he last experienced it?

He makes himself look up again. Belle is looking a little pink in the cheeks. They've lost some of their ease with each other amidst too much uncertainty. That's one more regret to add to the pile.

Belle's still silent. The gentlemanly thing to do would be to indicate that she should speak first, but if she does, she's going to ask him how he is. The last three days have been nothing but dwelling on how he is. Not that he's any closer to a proper answer now than he was to begin with, but he's sick of the question.

"How are you?" he asks.

"Oh, fine. I'm fine," she replies, too quickly, and bites her lip.

"Is something wrong?" he asks at once, trying to quell his rising concern. She doesn't look greatly distressed, just uncertain, which means that whatever is wrong must be something relatively easy to rectify. Probably. "Tell me, if there is." He's not what he once was, but he can at least make sure that his wife never wants for anything that money can buy. Less material wants and needs are something else again, of course…

"There's nothing wrong," Belle assures him. "Just… I've missed you." This time she's the one who reaches for his hand.

He can't stop the little thrill of pleasure he feels at that, along with a pang of guilt for keeping her at arm's length since he woke up. A better man would feel more guilt than pleasure. It's been three days for him, but it's been weeks for her. And before that, they'd been… apart. They've hardly seen each other in more than two months, if you don't count the fantasy life that Isaac wrote for them. For him.

"And I've missed you," he says, and not just because it's the only appropriate response. He _has_ missed her, and missed her terribly. They've spent far more time apart than together since she first walked into his shop, remembering nothing but alive— _alive!_ —the day Emma broke the curse. It feels as if he's been missing her forever, even when he spent those weeks asleep and was supposed to be aware of nothing. He doesn't want to miss her ever again.

"Belle," he says, taking her hand between both of his, "I look back on my life and I see a path littered with regrets. There's nothing I regret more than that we've ended up as we are now, not quite apart but not together either."

"What… what are you saying, Rumple?" Belle's eyes are fixed on his. He'll never get over how clear and blue they are, how deeply they see when they look at him. Belle makes him feel naked and exposed with every look. Sometimes that's a good thing.

"I want us to be together again, when the time is right. I want us to make a new start, a fresh start, and put everything," he makes an extravagant gesture with his free hand, taking in the two of them, "behind us. As if it never happened. As if right now it's just me, Rumpelstiltskin, meeting you, Belle, for the very first time." He looks earnestly into her eyes, hoping he's said the right thing. He's already tried and failed to undo the past, but now he can, at least, ignore it. Surely he can't offer her anything better than that—can he?

Belle's eyes are more than glistening now. They're filled with tears. Rumpelstiltskin hopes that's a good sign—right up until she withdraws her hand from his. 

"Oh, Rumple. No." She shakes her head. "You still don't understand, do you?"

Cold, hard dread clamps around his heart, around his gut. He feels frozen, and sick to the stomach, and-

"One iced mint tea, one coffee," Granny says, placing Belle's tea carefully in front of her and Rumpelstiltskin's coffee rather less carefully not quite in front of him. "I'll be back with your meals in a moment."

Perhaps Granny notices the tears in Belle's eyes and glares at him, but Rumpelstiltskin doesn't even glance at her this time. He's still looking at Belle. Belle, who's just told him… what, exactly? That there's no chance of starting again? That it's over? She told him she loved him, after their happy ending was taken from them, but perhaps that doesn't mean that she can live with him. Or maybe she's realised that life would be less complicated with Will after all, even if she doesn't love him? Or-

"We can't start again, Rumple. We can't wipe out the path that's brought us here," Belle says. It sounds like she's saying there's no hope, but she's smiling tremulously as she blinks back her tears. "Our experiences shape who we are, and who we are to each other. Without them, we're just a pair of strangers with nothing hard fought for, nothing of value, binding us together. Surely that false happy ending showed you that." Belle sniffs, and clears her throat, and takes a sip of her tea. "First meetings, _beginnings_ , are easy, but they're no guarantee that anything that follows will be easy at all. Choosing to keep meeting, to keep coming back, to build something worthwhile, something that matters… _That's_ what I want to do."

Rumpelstiltskin exhales, and the tightness inside uncoils. She still wants him, as well as loves him. There's still hope, and more than that. Maybe-

The door of the diner bangs open, and two people rush inside, coming to a screaming halt at Rumpelstiltskin's table.

"You need to help us stop Emma!" 

He doesn't answer at once, and it's a moment before he even looks at them. When at last he does, the stare he fixes on the woman who was once Snow White is hard and cold and implacable. "Do you think so? And yet I don't think I need to do anything of the kind." Apparently, there's a little of Mr Gold left in him after all. 

"Rumple," Belle says quietly, closing her hand over his. She manages to convey a lot with a single word, but it's not enough to sway him because this time she's the one who doesn't understand: _nothing_ is enough to make him do this. He _can't_ do this. He's just a man, and possibly a painfully ordinary one beneath the paper-thin surface.

"She has Henry!" Charming pushes forward, without quite elbowing his wife out of the way.

Rumpelstiltskin shrugs. "Well? She's hardly going to do him harm, is she? Becoming the Dark One doesn't mean one ceases to be capable of love. It just… twists things." He feels Belle squeeze his hand. "Besides, Henry's a resourceful lad. I'm sure he'll find a way out if he needs one."

"All the more reason to get him out of there now!" Charming exclaims.

"And what does his other mother have to say about the situation?" Rumpelstiltskin asks, his voice infused with a calm that he does not feel.

"She's working on it," Mary Margaret admits. 

"Then I suggest you find her and help her continue to work on it, and leave us to continue what was supposed to be a private conversation," Rumpelstiltskin says as bluntly as he can, since it's entirely possible that they'll fail to notice even the most blatant hint.

They stand there for a moment, as if not sure what to do next. Emma was usually the one to get things moving at the end of these sorts of conversations in the past, Rumpelstiltskin realises—which is one of the many reasons why it concerns him that Emma was the one who took the Dark One's power. He knows only too well how much _more_ dangerous it can be when it has the use of a human vessel that can think.

"You know it's not just Henry," Charming says quietly. 

Rumpelstiltskin winces inwardly: Charming has the earnest, intense look on his face that Rumpelstiltskin has come to know all too well. This conversation is, sadly, not over yet. 

"You know the sort of danger that Emma poses to Storybrooke, to all of us, including you—and your wife," Charming continues.

Oh, that's low. Rumpelstiltskin wouldn't have thought the Prince had it in him. Still, it's a more convincing argument than the sense of their own complete and utter hopelessness that Charming and Snow White usually throw at him when asking for his assistance. He eyes the Prince consideringly, but says nothing, so after a moment Charming adds, in so sincere a tone that Rumpelstiltskin feels vaguely ill:

"You know that better than anyone. And you know that you're the only one who's got any real chance of stopping her."

"And what would you do if I wasn't here?" Rumpelstiltskin asks softly. "You'd find a way. That's what heroes do, isn't it?" 

"Well, you'd know about that firsthand now, wouldn't you?" Charming says. There's no barb to it, no nasty little jab. He sounds just as nauseatingly sincere as before, which makes it all the worse.

"Surely," Mary Margaret says, "as a parent and grandparent yourself-"

"Don't." Rumpelstiltskin doesn't raise his voice, but the single word is enough to reduce the pair in front of him to silence. "I believe you have somewhere to be?" he suggests pointedly.

"I guess we do," Charming says. "For now, anyway. But Emma _does_ have to be stopped, if not today then some other day."

"Let's go see if Regina's made any progress,' Mary Margaret says, casting one last, reproachful look at Rumpelstiltskin before taking Charming by the arm and leading him away.

A moment later the door opens and closes, and they're gone.

"You could have helped them," Belle chides gently, but she doesn't let go of his hand this time. 

_I couldn't have helped them._ He doesn't say the words, but they hang there between the two of them, waiting to be spoken. Belle deserves the truth, she needs to know exactly who and what he is—and isn't—if they're going to be anything at all to each other. She'll find out eventually even if he doesn't tell her.

But he can't tell her here. Probably no one can hear their conversation above the constant mild din that permeates the diner, but _probably_ isn't good enough. He needs to be sure that what he reveals is for Belle's ears alone.

"I've just remembered that there's something at the shop that I need to retrieve. I'm sorry, I'd better get it now. Do you mind?" 

"I can wait," Belle replies, frowning slightly.

"I'd like you to come with me, if you would." He can see the moment when comprehension dawns in her eyes. She's quick, his Belle. Almost his again.

"Of course I'll come with you," she says. "We can have lunch later." 

Inevitably, Granny arrives with their meals just as they've gotten to their feet.

"Trying to leave without paying?" Granny enquires.

"Trying to leave without eating, thankfully," Rumpelstiltskin replies, but he reaches into his pocket and peels a couple of bills off the roll of banknotes that he keeps there. "Will that do?"

"It's a waste of good food," Granny grumbles, but she doesn't say no.

"I'm sorry, Granny. Something's come up," Belle says.

"You make sure you take care of yourself, girl," Granny says gruffly. As she turns to go back to the kitchen with their untouched plates, she shoots Rumpelstiltskin a look he can't decipher, something more than her usual mild hostility. He files the look away for future reference before opening the door of the diner for Belle and following her out onto the street.

It's not far from the diner to his shop, but the journey back has been lengthy in other ways. He stands outside and looks up at the sign for a moment before he fits the key into the lock. The little bell jingles as he opens the door. He hadn't been able to stand the sound of it when he'd woken up here three days ago. He hadn't been able to stand any of it, the gloomy interior, the cot bed in the work room, every last item in every single cabinet… All of it was familiar and is familiar, and all of it is no longer his. This was the Dark One's place, and it repels him, even as he remembers the way it used to call to him, always drawing him back.

He leads Belle back behind the curtain to the workroom and they sit down side by side on the cot. 

"So what's so important that you couldn't tell me where someone else might have heard?" she asks, smiling encouragingly. 

Rumpelstiltskin swallows, and wishes he'd thought to bring a coffee with him from the diner. He feels badly in need of a distraction, some small innocuous way of breaking up this conversation into smaller pieces. But there's nothing. He just has to say it. He clears his throat, and begins, "Do you remember our honeymoon?" 

"Of course. Don't you?" She sends him a mischievous sideways glance.

He gives her a strained smile in reply and continues, "When I first saw the sorcerer's hat, sitting there in that house, I realised that a way of freeing myself of the Dark Curse while still retaining my powers had…well, fallen into my lap, almost."

"But it didn't work out the way you planned." Belle says slowly. The mischievous smile of a moment ago has vanished.

"No, not quite," Rumpelstiltskin says, with a humourless laugh. "But it did eventually free me of the Dark Curse." He doesn't say anything more. He just sits there and looks her straight in the eyes and hopes that she gets it. 

"But...but not the other?" Belle says carefully. "You didn't retain your powers after the Dark Curse was gone?" 

"No," he says. "I'm not the Dark One any more. I'm not even the famed sorcerer, Rumpelstiltskin. I'm just… I'm not sure. Whatever's left over when the Dark Curse and the magical power are gone. Just a man. Just Rumpelstiltskin and nothing else."

"Oh, Rumple," Belle says, and takes his hand between both of hers. "There's nothing 'just' about you."

"There is now." He laughs humourlessly. Again. Well, if ever a conversation called for such a laugh, it's this one.

"That's why you wouldn't help David and Mary Margaret," Belle realises.

"Yes. Because I can't." He has to force the words out but he does it. He looks down at the floor.

"Are you sure all of the power is gone? Things must feel very different for you, so maybe you just need to find a different approach or way in or something?" Belle makes an impatient sound. "I don't know enough about how it feels to use magic to even have the right vocabulary for the question!"

Rumpelstiltskin almost smiles as he contemplates the toes of his shoes. How Belle hates to be less than expert when it comes to anything to do with words. The mastery of them is her own particular power, just as the mastery of magic used to be his.

"I've tried using magic repeatedly, different spells, even a few magical items, but there's simply nothing there, nothing to hang on to, nothing to drive the idea from thought into reality," he explains.

"Oh," Belle says, despondently. After a moment she lifts his hand, as if weighing it in both of hers. "So what are you going to do?"

Rumpelstiltskin sighs. "Well, people will find out, eventually. It's inevitable. One day there'll be a situation where I need to use magic, and then they'll see that I have none. In the meantime…" He spreads his hands. "I'm going to try to put off the day that happens for as long as possible. Or…

"Or leave Storybrooke," Belle finishes for him.

"Or that. Maybe. If the opportunity arises. I don't know. I…" He shakes his head. "I'm lost, Belle. My whole life has been strategy for too many years to count. I've always had a plan. Always. And now… I don't know what to do without even the possibility of magic, of power, playing the deciding factor somewhere down the track." His voice rises as he speaks, and his vision is a blur by the time the sentence somehow finds its end.

He's vaguely aware of Belle letting go of his hand, and then her arms come around him, drawing him close. 

"It's all right, Rumple. I've got you," she says, and that's it, the final straw.

Rumpelstiltskin buries his face against her and cries. It's not just a few tears glistening in his eyes because he's been briefly overcome by some strong emotion, either. He cries as he never has since he was a child, and maybe not even then. Great, ugly sobs well up, and bring everything else with them: all the misery and fear, everything he's been trying desperately to keep a lid on, to keep bottled up inside, for days now.

Belle lets him cry, rubbing his back in soothing circles and whispering over and over again that it's all right, that she's here, until the brief, violent storm subsides. 

He feels drained and terribly weary once it's over, but calm. The fabric of Belle's top is damp against his cheek, he realises. And his face is pressed between her breasts. They're fuller than he remembers, but just as soft and warm and welcoming as ever. Then he lifts his head, and embarrassment hits. He's able to recognise the feeling without any trouble this time.

"I'm sorry, I don't know what- I'm sorry," he says, looking everywhere but at her.

"Rumple, I'm your wife. Remember?" Belle says, resting her hands on his shoulders while her eyes seek his. "This is the way things should be."

"What? Your husband crying on your shoulder like a child?" he asks bitterly.

"Not like a child. That wasn't my shoulder," Belle points out with the tiniest hint of a smile. "But… sharing things, sharing everything, sharing your thoughts and how you're feeling… Being honest with each other. Yes, this _is_ the way things should be. It's what I wanted before."

Rumpelstiltskin considers the ceiling a moment, takes a deep breath and lets it out, and then finally looks at her again. At Belle. His wife. The woman who's just seen him hit his lowest ebb and hasn't run. Or laughed.

"You want us to share everything. I think I just did." He gives her a rueful little smile. "There isn't anything that you've somehow forgotten to share, is there?"

He asks the question lightly, because Belle is never anything but completely honest, but the instant the words are out of his mouth he can tell that they've hit a nerve. Now _she's_ the one who won't meet his eyes.

"Belle?" Her cheeks are paler than usual, he notices now that she's turned her head away from him. Back at the diner he'd wondered if there was something wrong and she'd tried, unsuccessfully, to brush off his concerns. Then they'd been interrupted and he'd stupidly allowed himself to be distracted by other considerations. He stares at her, and feels sick to the stomach. There _is_ something wrong. "What's the matter, sweetheart?" he asks, dreading the answer but hating not knowing even more, and reaches out to cup her cheek.

Belle chokes on a laugh or a sob or _something_. Whatever the noise is, it's not remotely reassuring.

"Tell me," Rumpelstiltskin says. " _Please._ "

She leans her head against his hand and meets his eyes. "I… I was going to…" She takes a deep breath, and lets it out. "I'm pregnant," she says.

Rumpelstiltskin goes completely still. She's watching him, waiting for his reaction. It takes him long seconds to find any words at all. "You're sure?" he croaks.

"Yes." She nods, and she's smiling now, smiling and teary, but still not saying anything else. Still waiting.

"That's wonderful," he says. His lip is trembling. He's not sure why. He wraps his arms around her and she leans into him, hugging him back. 

"Yes, yes it is," she says against his shoulder.

It's an awkward angle, trying to embrace while sitting there together on the bed. After a moment, he draws back, but he keeps one arm wrapped around her so that she remains pressed warm against him with her head nestled against his shoulder. It feels right. And when his hand slips down to rest for a second against the tiny swell of her belly… That feels right, too.

A child. _Their_ child. He's going to be a father again. He'll get it right this time. He will. Or die trying. 

"This is why you didn't want to start again from the beginning," he says.

She shakes her head. "Not just because of this. I meant what I said. We need to build on what we already have. And we need to be _honest_ with each other. No more deceptions, no more lies of omission."

"All right," Rumpelstiltskin says, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. "If that's what you want, then that's what we'll do." _And hope desperately that it actually works_ , he adds silently, but what he says is: "I won't lie to you and I'll do my very best to share everything important with you, from now on."

She pulls back so that she can look at him properly. "I promise that, too. Between us both trying, we should be able to make things work, for us and for…" She looks away, watching her hand as it strokes down over her belly."You're not going to ask, are you?" she says when she looks up again. It's more of a statement than a question.

Rumpelstiltskin doesn't pretend to misunderstand. "If the child wasn't mine, you wouldn't be telling me. Or not like this, in any case." Once, not long ago, he probably would have greeted her news with questions born of the paranoid suspicion that had been shaped and honed over centuries by the Curse. Now, the questions still occur to him, but the answers do too—before he has time to open his mouth, thankfully. _Mostly_ before that. He reaches out and places his hand beside hers. It's too soon to feel any movements, or for the baby to be even peripherally aware of his presence, but _he_ knows that he's there, that he'll always be there if he possibly can, and for now that's enough.

"Oh, Rumple." The expression on Belle's face contains too much happiness for Rumpelstiltskin to bear looking at it for long. The soft little kiss that she presses against his lips comes as much as a relief as anything else. It's the first kiss that they've shared in… well, too long. He kisses her back, and loses himself in it, in her, for a moment.

Her eyes remain on him after the kiss ends, happy and hopeful and expectant in more ways than one.

"When is the baby due?" he asks, belatedly realising that that's one question she does want him to ask.

"Just before the winter solstice," she says. "In a little less than six months from now…"

"We'll be parents," he says. It still doesn't feel quite real.

"We'll be a family," Belle says. Her eyes are bright with love and hope and happy tears.

Yes, a family. A family that will need protection…

He's going to have to do something about Emma.

"What?" Belle asks, her eyes narrowing a little. "Your face just changed. What are you thinking about?" 

"Oh, nothing in particular. Just preparations for the future. Have you consulted a doctor? I suppose there's no one else but Whale, is there?" he adds, grimacing in distaste. He's quite sincere in his feelings about Whale, but the question also serves to distract Belle from asking anything more about the look she just saw on his face. Not that he plans to deceive her. Not about anything important, anyway. And it's not like there's anything _to_ tell just yet. When he has something to tell, he'll tell her.

"Doctor Whale has been… very professional," Belle says. "He says that everything's fine so far."

"Good," Rumpelstiltskin says. He smiles at her but he's already considering ways in which he might get Belle to Boston to see the best obstetrician that city has to offer. Getting back will be more of a problem, but then coming back at all depends very much on how he deals with the small problem of Miss Swan.

Belle takes him by the elbow. "Rumple, _tell_ me."

He frowns. "What do you mean?

"Ever since I told you about the baby… You've changed."

"That sort of news tends to do that to a man, Belle. I-" He stops, unable to keep up the glib denial in the face of her steady gaze. "I need to protect the baby," he says, in quite another voice. "And I need to protect you, all of us. Our _family_."

Belle smiles. "I know you will, Rumple. I'd never doubt that."

"Yes, but I _can't_. Not while the Dark One is free to do whatever she likes."

"So… you have to do something about Emma," Belle says.

"I have to do something about Emma," Rumpelstiltskin agrees.

"But you don't have any magic." It's a statement of the obvious, but it's still a valid point. He _doesn't_ have magic, and that colours every consideration.

"No. That's the hard part. I'll find a way, though, Belle. I swear. Even if it means the three of us leaving Storybrooke never to return. Even if it means… something more final."

"No!" Belle shakes her head, and her eyes are bright. "Our baby is _not_ going to grow up without a father. Promise me that. If need be, we'll leave Storybrooke, but not without you. _Never_ without you."

"I promise," Rumpelstiltskin says, and it feels like an echo of the promise he made in another time and place, when he'd been so determined to protect another child. That child is gone now. Rumpelstiltskin will never take another breath without the pain of that loss, and the knowledge that the breaking of that promise was, ultimately, the cause of Bae's death.

He won't break this promise. He won't abandon another child. He'll just have to find a way to… well, to at least _constrain_ the Dark One. He has no idea how he'll do it. Yet. Without any magic of his own. But he'll find a way.

Belle lets go of his elbow, but only so she can move her hand up to his shoulder. "You're not the only one who's determined to protect our family. We're in this together. We'll find a way." 

He looks at her, sitting there, small and slight and so, so fierce as she pledges to protect them, to protect _him_ as much as herself and their child. He's never loved her more. He doesn't mean to kiss her, not right then, but maybe she kisses him. However it starts, they both ensure that it continues for some time.

They end the kiss reluctantly, lips still trying to cling even as they draw back. Rumpelstiltskin forces himself to take his hands off Belle and get up. If they continue like this they'll be here half the afternoon—and there are far better, more private and more comfortable places in which to celebrate their reunion properly.

"We should get out of here," Rumpelstiltskin says, glancing around. There's a chill to the place, and the cluttered shelves give it an air of oppressiveness that's hard to ignore when his attention is not entirely focused on Belle.

Of course, the shelves also offer up more tangible contents. He may no longer be magical himself, but there are plenty of magical items secreted away in this shop that only he knows the use of. All the more dangerous artefacts are locked away under layers of spells that are now impenetrable to him, but… There are other people in this town with magic, and not just the Dark One. Perhaps Regina might be of use, if there's a way of getting her to do what is needed without her realising just how powerless he is. Of course, she must be frantic about Henry by now. She must be ready to do almost anything, including not asking too many questions, if there's the slightest hope of snatching the boy from Miss Swan's clutches.

"Rumple?" Belle says. Her expression is knowing, and just a little bit stern. "Remember what we just said about being honest?" 

"I'm just considering how best to enlist Regina's aid in retrieving a few magical items that are locked away in this shop," he says. He doesn't try to look innocent, because that truly is a lost cause, but he hopes he looks sincere. 

Belle's stern look falters, and she grins and shakes her head.

"I'm telling you the truth," he says, feeling slightly miffed.

"Yes, I know," Belle says, but she's still grinning. She gets to her feet—and, "Oh!" she says, and stumbles before half-falling back onto the bed. 

"Belle!" Rumpelstiltskin is beside her in an instant. "Are you all right? What do you need me to do? Lie down, let me l-

"I'm all right, I'm fine!" Belle protests, but she has a hand to her face and she's looking terribly pale. "It was just a dizzy spell. I get them sometimes. I should be all right once I've had something to eat. Even a few crackers should help." 

Something to eat… It must be well after one o'clock by now. He dragged her out of the diner before she'd been able to have more than a few sips of iced tea. It's his fault. Of course it is. "Let's get you back to the diner for some… well, I was going to say proper food, but that would be overstating things. Something better than crackers, at least."

It's a testament to how unwell Belle must be feeling that she doesn't try to assure him that she's fine again, but merely nods and says, "That sounds like a good idea. Could you get me a glass of water first? "

"Of course." Rumpelstiltskin keeps his voice steady and calm, but he's trying not to panic as he goes swiftly to the tiny bathroom at the very back of the shop. Dizzy spells and nausea are common symptoms of pregnancy. He knows that—but they only have Whale's assurance that everything else is fine. And really, what does Victor know? He's only a medical doctor courtesy of the curse. His true qualifications are more mad scientist than general practitioner!

He takes a glass from the cabinet to fill it at the sink, and catches sight of his reflection in the mirror as he does so. He looks… he's not sure how he looks, but it's nothing like Mr Gold, despite the suit and tie. He doesn't look like the Dark One, either. Not even the version of the Dark One that lived in Storybrooke after the curse was broken. Neither of them ever cried their eyes out like a child on Belle's shoulder—but then both of them lost Belle through their own actions. He has Belle again, despite everything, and he's going to do everything in his power to keep her this time. Maybe the ordinary man can succeed where the Dark One failed, at this if nothing else. Maybe.

There are still a few telltale signs of his crying fit on his face; his eyes are somewhat red and there's a slight puffiness around the lids, but it's fading fast. You need to know what you're looking for to see it. Soon, there won't be any evidence that it ever happened. He stops to dash some water on his face before returning to Belle, just the same. He may be an ordinary man but he doesn't have to admit to it. Not where anyone but Belle can see.

He's relieved to see a little more colour in Belle's cheeks when he returns with the water. She takes a few sips and hands the glass back to him.

"Thanks." Belle gets to her feet—slowly this time. "I'm all right," she assures him, when he hovers so close that she has to step around him to move away from the bed.

Reluctantly, Rumpelstiltskin leaves her standing there while he takes the glass back to the bathroom. He makes it there and back in what must be record time.

He takes one last look around the workroom before he pulls back the curtain for Belle. This was… not his home, but still more of a home than Mr Gold's pink house on the hill ever has been. He's spent days beyond count here in this little room, and bedded down on the cot more nights than not. 

It was the Dark One's lair, and he won't miss it. He follows Belle out of the room and lets the curtain swish back into place behind him.

He offers Belle his arm once they're out on the street, and she takes it with a smile. They've only taken a few steps when her fingers tighten around his arm, though. 

"Belle!" He stops at once. She's gone pale again. 

"I'm- I'll be all right. It isn't very far."

But still _too_ far. Rumpelstiltskin wishes that he had both hands free to hold her steady, but of course he requires a cane to even hold himself fully upright. He wishes that he could sweep her up in his arms and carry her to the diner—or somewhere far better. He wishes desperately that he'd woken up with his magic intact, and then he could just snap his fingers and-

"Rumple!" Belle's eyes have gone wide, and she glances down at the ground in panic. "What's happening?" 

Rumpelstiltskin looks down at the ground, expecting to see anything and everything that he can no longer protect Belle from, but there's nothing. Just ordinary pavement beneath her-

No, not beneath her feet. Or, rather, the pavement is still very much where it's always been, but the same cannot be said for Belle's feet. Her stylish black heels hover an inch or two above the ground. As for whether or not he can protect her from the power that's holding them up, well...

"Just stay still, Belle. It's all right," he says. He fixes his eyes on her feet and takes a deep breath. As he slowly lets it out again, Belle's feet sink equally slowly back towards the ground. 

"Rumple?" Belle asks, a dozen questions contained in a single word as she looks from him to her feet and back again.

He holds up a hand for her to wait until he's done. He's nearly there. The soles of her shoes touch the pavement just as the last of his breath leaves his lungs. And then he's gasping for breath and shaking his head and trying to believe that what just happened really did just happen.

"Rumple?" Belle asks again, her expression a mixture of shock and hope. "Was that-

"Yes, it was me, it came from me." he says, still shaking his head. "I was just thinking how much I wanted to be able to lift you up, and then…" He makes a lifting gesture with his free hand.

"But how is this even possible? I thought you couldn't…"

"As did I. I've just spent three days proving to myself that I can't—and now I can." He takes her in his arms and all but dances around on the spot with her. "It feels very different, though. It's more instinctive and less… I don't know. Harder to reach for head on. It will require much study, of course."

Belle smiles, but it's a strained smile. She's still looking much too pale. Being jolted around in an impromptu dance can't have made her feel any better, either. Some of the dizzying excitement drains out of Rumpelstiltskin then, to be replaced by guilt. Belle needs him to look after her now. His newly-found magic can wait until at least after he gets her safely to the diner.

"Come," he says, his voice as low and tender as he can make it. He wraps an arm around her. "Let's get some lunch." 

"Let's." Belle smiles again, but this is much more the sort of smile he likes to see on her face. She nestles in against him, her head against his shoulder, and they start off down the street again.

The going is easier this time, even with Belle's feet firmly on the ground, and a few minutes later they reach the diner—just in time, by the look on Belle's face.

"Lunch, as soon as you can get it on the table," Rumpelstiltskin snaps, waving a wad of banknotes at Granny.

"Oh, put that away and get her seated," Granny snaps right back. "She'll feel better for doing that." 

Rumpelstiltskin pauses in the act of hustling Belle to a booth and fixes Granny with a piercing stare. "You know?" 

"Of course I know. I've got eyes in my head."

"It's that obvious?" Rumpelstiltskin asks, eyes narrowing.

"Well, that and I've got a heightened sense of smell," Granny admits. "I'll be back in a moment," she adds, and bustles off to the kitchen.

"Werewolves," Rumpelstiltskin mutters as he seats himself opposite Belle.

"You know she means well," Belle says. She's already looking a little better. Granny was right, damn the woman.

"Does she?" Rumpelstiltskin asks darkly, though his tone owes more to irritation than anything else.

"So. Your magic," Belle says, folding her hands on the table in front of her.

"My magic." Rumpelstiltskin watches her carefully.

"Obviously something's different." 

"Obviously." 

"It's pretty clear _why_ it's different." Belle looks away for a second. It's clearly not a subject she likes to dwell on. "The real question is: _how_ is it different? Why was today different from the past three days?" 

"I have an idea about that," Rumpelstiltskin says, picking up a fork. "The Dark Curse amplified… well, it amplified and exaggerated everything, including my ability to use and control magic. But it also influenced the nature of my magic, and now that influence is gone as well. What's left is not dark, but light." He holds the fork up in front of him and does his best to focus on it to the exclusion of all else, blocking out the sight and sound of the other diners, blocking out everything but the fork, and himself—and Belle. Slowly, a cloud of whiteness, made up half of smoke, half of light itself, converges around his hand. When the smoke clears again, Rumpelstiltskin is holding not a fork but a rose of stainless steel polished so brightly that it appears almost silver. He lets out a sigh of relief that it actually worked, and offers the rose to Belle. "If you'll have it?" he says with a hopeful smile. 

Eyes suspiciously bright, Belle inclines her head in acknowledgement, and takes the steel rose. "Of course I will," she says, biting her lip. She remembers. Of course she does.

"All magic comes with a price," Rumpelstiltskin explains, and Belle nods. She's heard that before. "And the price of light magic is selflessness. I can use magic, but not for myself." He smiles slightly. He knows himself well enough to be sure that he will be chafing against that restriction once his elation at possessing magic again has worn off. But for the time being he has other considerations to occupy him. Considerations like the child that is on the way. Considerations like a former Saviour who will need to be dealt with. And considerations like getting some sustenance into his suddenly-pale-again wife before she passes out, or throws up, or possibly both.

Granny emerges from the kitchen then, right on cue. She's carrying a tray laden with a number of items, including what looks very like two plates of fish and chips.

"You expect us to eat that, after it's been lying about in your kitchen all the time we've been away?" Rumpelstiltskin asks indignantly. He wonders if obliterating the old woman counts as being selfless if he does it on Belle's behalf.

"No, I expect _you_ to eat that after it's spent the time safely covered in the refrigerator and then reheated in the microwave. However, I expect Belle would prefer _this_ ," Granny says, taking a smaller plate from the tray and placing it in front of Belle. It contains two pieces of dry toast.

"Thank you, Granny," Belle says gratefully, and doesn't even wait for Granny to put the glass of iced mint tea on the table before she takes the first bite.

Granny smiles benevolently down at her, before casting a rather less benevolent look Rumpelstiltskin's way. "You take care of her. She'll need it," she says.

"I know, and I will," Rumpelstiltskin says. He's not certain why he feels the need to assure her of his intentions, except maybe that she's the only person in town who's ever seemed to look out even a little bit for Belle—apart from himself and one other person whose name Rumpelstiltskin doesn't care to think, much less speak.

"Good," Granny grunts, and turns away to take orders at the next table.

"Have the two of you finished deciding what's best for me?" Belle asks conversationally as she puts down her toast. "I'm pregnant. That's the only thing that's changed. All the rest of me is still in working order."

"I'm sorry," Rumpelstiltskin says, and he means it. He shrugs slightly. "I worry."

"I know," Belle says, and smiles at him, everything she feels for him showing in her eyes for a moment. "That's why it's easy to forgive you." She reaches out across the table to take his hand, lacing their fingers tightly together.

The door of the diner swings open, and three people come inside, making straight for Belle and Rumpelstiltskin. 

"Oh, no," Belle says in dismay.

Snow White and Prince Charming have returned, and this time they've brought Regina with them.

"Don't worry. I can deal with it," Rumpelstiltskin says, lounging back in his seat and watching them advance across the room towards him. He means that, as well. He's not just able to deal with these three and the matter they've come to talk to him about; he's _ready_. He lets an enigmatic little smile form on his lips. It's not quite the sort of almost-smile Mr Gold would have employed, nor is it the wicked, knowing grin of the Dark One. 

It's a smile that's all Rumpelstiltskin's own, and before long Storybrooke and the new Dark One are going to get to know it very well indeed.


End file.
